[Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

Mon Sep 10 12:45:47 UTC 2012

Lloyd, I haven't seen this device, but it reminds me a bit of a short lived reading device called a stereotoner. As I remember it, this thing gave each printed letter an acoustical pitch, and it is alleged that some people used it to read printed material. 

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Lloyd Rasmussen
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 10:02 PM
To: Blind Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

the vOICe is not really a device, but it uses devices you may already have. 
If you have a webcam connected to your PC, or if you have it look at your screen or the active window or the area around the mouse pointer, it converts the image into a "soundscape" which is an audio signal, rescanned every two seconds, which represents the image.  Probably best used with stereo headphones.  In this representation, an imaginary vertical line scans across the image from left to right.  At each instant, tones are generated with highest pitch being toward the top of the image, and with volume of each pitch corresponding to the brightness of the image at that point.  By default, 64 different frequencies are generated, and 176 vertical lines constitute a two-second scan.  A single vertical line would sound like a burst of noise.  A horizontal line sounds like a tone of constant pitch which lasts the whole 2 seconds, which pans from left to right in your headphones.  A print capital V would sound like a tone which falls and then rises in pitch, repeated every two seconds.  You can adjust most of the parameters of how the image is sonified, including zooming it, changing the scan rate, reversing the video, filtering by one color, etc.

It's a small Windows executable.  People who really get into this obtain a webcam that is built into a pair of glasses, put a portable computer in a backpack (providing for enough ventilation), run the software with speech recognition, and walk around the house or the area learning how to distinguish objects, learning about how occlusion and parallax work, etc.

Whereas the Optacon was a direct translation aid (the human has to do all the work of interpreting what the camera sees) for printed material, the vOICe is probably most useful as a direct translation aid for sensing the environment or quick rendering of images that appear on a PC.  Like the Optacon, it takes lots and lots of practice to get good at using it, and it remains mostly a subject for experimentation rather than a tool that a lot of blind people are using in their daily lives.  It would not be a good travel aid, in my opinion, because you need to hear environmental sounds and the time to recognize a scene is long.  And Peter Meijer, the author, is careful not to make any claims that it would be a good substitute for a cane or guide dog.  The first version, run in dedicated hardware, is now 20 years old.  I think that the Windows executable is about 15 years old (undergoes continuous improvements).  An Android  version has been in Google Play for about 2 years.  He also did one for Simbian cell phones, but these are disappearing from the market.

This is probably more than you wanted to know, but I think it is fascinating.  www.seeingwithsound.com .
Lloyd Rasmussen, Wheaton, MD, W3IUU
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Nusbaum
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 10:22 PM
To: 'Blind Talk Mailing List'
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

Hi Roger,

I've heard of this device, but I don't think it works quite like the Optacon. From what I read about it, it seemed like some kind of device that simulated the sense of sight by making the blind person feel like he/she is seeing the object being detected by the VOICE. I was kind of intrigued by this technology, but couldn't quite wrap my head around how it works. I would be interested to hear any firsthand accounts of how the technology works from anybody who has actually used the device. By the way, I read about this device in an article in the Matilda Ziegler magazine a few months ago.

Chris

-----Original Message-----
From: blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindtlk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Roger devin Prater
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 9:35 PM
To: Blind Talk Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

Hmm, have any of you tried the vOICe? http://seeingwithsound.com It works, as far as I know about the opticon, like it, only it uses sound instead of tactiles, and is free. http://seeingwithsound.come just in case I misspelled it the first time, LOL.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mike Freeman" <k7uij at panix.com>
To: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Cc: "Blind Talk Mailing List" <blindtlk at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 8:26 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindtlk] devices RE: introduction

> Absolutely not! Translation into Braille means the unit would be 
> telling you what it think it sees, not letting you interpret for 
> yourself what the unit sees.
>
> Mike
>

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